Family therapy to tackle teenage addiction

A new form of therapy based on family relationships is helping to combat teenage addiction to drugs and alcohol in Glasgow.

Professor Cynthia Rowe of the University of Miami, where the new technique was developed, said that the therapy would give every member of the family a chance to air their thoughts and opinions.

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Speaking to BBC One Scotland's Reporting Scotland, Professor Rowe said: "In family sessions the therapist's job is to help each family member express their concerns, their worries, their hurts, their disappointments."

Using this method, family members could hear the concerns expressed and "then too respond in a different way, in a new way".

"So in families we're helping them have a new experience of each other," Professor Rowe added.

Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and France will also be piloting the new family-based therapy.

Approximately two million people in the UK are living with an addiction, according to the BBC.

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